


Shadow Controller

by DayStar



Series: Shadow [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark Character, Dark Stiles, M/M, Multi, One Shot, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 01:54:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1180528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DayStar/pseuds/DayStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a demon takes control of Stiles, it's only a matter of time before things go to hell. Time, as in seconds. And with Stiles lost in his own personal damnation, and Derek and the rest of the pack powerless, salvation seems a long way away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadow Controller

Darkness, silence and stillness. Three things he utterly detested. Stiles was... no where. Where was he? He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He couldn't see. There was a panicked fluttering in his chest... or there should have been, because he was _seriously flipping out_ , but his heart was ignoring that and continuing to beat at a perfectly steady rate. And his throat, which should have been constricted and as dry as his dad's attempts at cooking turkey, was anything but. He racked his brain, straining at the invisible bonds that held his limbs in place, when suddenly, deep in his head, a thought came.

And it was not his own.

_Hmm. That's rather interesting. Not as I expected._

Stiles became aware of something stirring - as though from a long sleep - and that thing moved inside of him, filling his bones and muscles, pushing away his weak protests with an offhand strength that was all the more chilling for the carelessness with which it was used. He was nothing compared to whatever the hell had taken over his body. With that despairing thought came an abrupt flood of memories, of days of sleeplessness, hours of tormented dreams, and the riddle, always the riddle, circling around at the corner of his vision. 

Everyone has it, but no one can lose it. Everyone has it, but no one can lose it. Everyone has it, but no one can lose it.

A shadow. 

And again the thoughts, not his own, came streaming in, and he was powerless to stop them.  _Very interesting. Unexpected. Do you know anything about this?_

It felt like there were suddenly a million sharp hooks dragging through his brain, latching on to every memory he held and yanking them out of their shadowed spaces, drawing them forward to be observed in a clinical, bright light. With surgical precision, the thing inside him sliced through the unimportant parts - dismissed his hopes about lacrosse, contemptuously regarded his crush on Lydia, ignored the throbbing fear of failing his father - and fell on Stiles' most recent experiences, focusing on any explanation of the supernatural that he ever received. The invasion was painful enough that Stiles would have be screaming if he could, but his lips were crushed together, disdaining his orders to open. So he cried out in silence as the thing - a heavy handed oppression in his mind - took away all that was secret or shared, hated or loved, shameful or proud. And when it was finished, it threw it all back and left Stiles' consciousness crumpled in a small, contained corner while it continued to expand.

_Nothing. Well, no matter. I am in control._

His eyes opened. Only they weren't his eyes any more.

\---

"Stiles, Stiles, wake up. You need to wake up."

Fresh in the pathetic being's memories, the voice was easily matched to a face. Scott McCall. The true alpha.

Stiles' mouth stretched into a grin even as his eyelashes fluttered and his vision - real vision, solid vision - cleared. There were several faces crowding above him, and effortlessly he named them. Isaac. Derek. And - ah. Kira. Lovely. And Scott too, of course. They all drew back as he stirred, testing out the muscles of his new body tentatively, gingerly. He didn't find them wanting. Not strong, but not pathetic. Good. He hated weak bodies.

They knew that something was wrong. He could see it in their faces. Ignoring the little voice screeching in their - his - mind (what a shock that had been), he shifted forward, using their - _his_ - long, pale hands to steady himself against the floor. A moment later and he rose, unsteady but confident. They were in a dimly lit room, and he sensed weight above his head. The space was probably a basement. He didn't really care about that; his attention was mostly focused on the primarily useful group that was gathered around their good friend.

His smile grew, and they stepped back.

"Stiles?" the one called Kira asked, tentatively, hopefully. It is with great enjoyment that he crushed that hope.

"Stiles isn't home right now. Would you care to leave a message?" The modern words slipped easily from their - his, his - lips, and he ignored his annoyance at the continual lapse in favor of relishing the way their faces cracked and fell apart. No one was unaffected, but it was Scott who showed his emotions most forcefully. He took a step forward, hands clenched, red beginning to saturate his placid brown eyes, and the being felt a thrill at the sight.

He didn't notice that Stiles had stopped whimpering.     

"What have you done? What the hell are you?" Scott's bared teeth, the shaking rage in his questions, might have impressed a lesser being, but not he. One such as he did not cower.   

"I've merely sent your friend on a vacation. A permanent one, I suspect. After all, I've taken over, so he can't come back." A mild untruth, but what was one white lie when compared to the red etched forever into his history? Besides, it was rapture to watch them squirm, tossing the statement among themselves with confused looks and drawn eyebrows. Clearly none of them were educated on any of the things that mattered. He wasn't surprised. After all, he had Stiles' knowledge at his disposal.

Derek, on the other hand, was somewhat of an enigma, considering Stiles' views of him. And he was also a surprise. "You didn't answer the question," the werewolf growled, his voice pitched low enough to almost rumble. "What did you do, and what are you?" Icy blue eyes flashed, demanding truth, and while they couldn't pull anything from him, the being decided to answer anyways, because silence could only be so fun. And besides, a direct answer might make them truly afraid, and he longed to see fear in their faces. It was one of the things he'd been missing most over the years.

"I took control of him," he answered simply. "I've been... sleeping, I suppose you might say. Sleeping inside of him. And then that foxy lady," his grin took on a predatory look as he nodded at Kira, "woke me up with that delightful power of hers. After that, it was just a simple matter of prying and pushing at all the cracks I could find in his weak mind - and there were plenty - and coming in when they got wide enough. It was easy. Stiles was pathetic."

_Well you chose me, so what does that make you?_

The snarky response, drifting out of the small space he had impatiently shoved Stiles into, made him twitch. He wasn't used to his hosts remaining when he took over. Usually they burned out and disappeared. Always, in point of fact. But not this one. How irritating.

_You haven't seen irritating yet, buddy._

There was fear in the human's thoughts, and it was clear that he'd heard his controller's musings. The prospect of oblivion was one of Stiles' greatest fears. In a different situation, the being might have laughed at such empty bravado. After all, he was firmly, completely in control. But this was unfamiliar ground, and, as soon as he had dealt with Stiles' friends, he was going to have to do something about the little speck that refused to leave.

Speaking of dealing with insignificant specks. Not-Stiles drew his attention back to the group, his dark gaze tighter than it had been. The mortals seemed nonplussed by his abrupt silence, trying to comprehend what he had told them with their tiny minds. Contempt came boiling up from his stomach, almost nauseating in its strength, and the being dropped his smile. "You asked what I am. I'm the reason your ancestors created a god, something to protect them from the things that go bump in the night. I - and my brethren - are why exorcisms exist; because you pathetic creatures must believe that there is some kind of escape from us. I am the shadows and the night. I am-"

_A drama queen. Peter is gonna be pissed you're outdoing him._

Cut off, dying suddenly and - if he were honest with himself - lamely, the impressive speech he'd just about finished delivering ended on an incredibly flat note. Contempt was nothing compared to rage, and if it weren't for the suddenly intent light in the pale eyes of Derek, the being would have directed all of his fury at Stiles and made him pay for the interruption. As it was, the creature could only add, shortly covering up his sudden pauses, "You know me as the demon. That is as accurate as you will ever be; you couldn't understand anything more. But I am _a_ demon, and I have chosen a name for this host; it is Tenebrae." He'd found that word in his own mind, and it coincided with memories of Stiles' earnest, four week attempt to learn Latin. It was a strong title, and spoke of his power and-

_Tenebrae? Are you kidding me? Are you a fifth grader naming their goldfish of doom? Or did you hope to make it as a playwright?_

"Shut up!" It wasn't until the mortals startled that Tenebrae realized he'd spoken aloud.

Derek's face creased into a grim look of satisfaction, and he directed his words at the whole group. "He's lying. Stiles is still in there." The mingled exclamations of surprise and pleasure made the demon bite his tongue, hard enough to draw blood. He didn't feel the pain of it - pain wasn't something he experienced in a host - but the metallic taste was hardly a calming factor. Neither was the incessant crowing of the mind he had mastered.

_Damn right I'm still here._

Tenebrae abandoned the pretense and let a sneer twist Stiles' lips into an entirely foreign expression of cruelty. "Your friend is quite the loud mouth. I wonder if his screams will be quite as loud?"

The one called Isaac - the one with the ridiculous scarf - spoke up from the sidelines, rocking back and forth on his feet as he did so. "Nice bluff. You're not going to hurt yourself just because he's an annoying voice in your head. I may have wanted to stab myself in the ears while he was talking sometimes, but that doesn't mean I actually did it."

It was disconcerting, the rush of emotion that tackled him while the werewolf spoke. Gratitude, resentment, a very vague, repressed amusement. Tenebrae had never had to deal with the feelings of his host, had never had to force them away and not be influenced by them. The experience tipped him from aggravated to furious, and it wasn't hard to search through the conscious he controlled and find Stiles. Stiles, who had already heard his intentions and tried to struggle away, tried a last desperate attempt at escaping the vice grip that the demon was slowly closing around him.

"Oh, you don't know what I'm willing to do to this body, Isaac," Not-Stiles agreed, smiling through gritted teeth. "But I'm sure you know that the mind is a fragile, fragile thing, and pain doesn't have to be physical. Even something as small as confinement can be... unpleasant." He loaded his words with meaning, was rewarded when the teen's colour drained, haunting memories parading across his bloodless cheeks and briefly closed eyes. And with that wretched expression to launch him into a victorious march, he closed on Stiles' darting thoughts and smothered them. 

Tenebrae had never experienced this before, either, the ease of patiently crushing a victim held helpless within their own mind. He'd never tortured a soul before. But finally, finally, this was an undertaking that he could thoroughly enjoy. For whatever reason - the same reason Stiles hadn't disappeared when he took over, most likely - Tenebrae couldn't snuff him out no matter how hard he mentally clenched around the groaning consciousness. But that did little to deter the long-lived spirit. You didn't need to kill someone to make them _want_ to die, after all. Because the two were separate entities, it was harmless to him to send sharp tongues of psychic flame licking at the boy's mind, making it metaphorically writhe in agony.

Stiles' screams were louder than his insults. Question answered.

Almost like having a background song playing during a conversation, the demon tuned out the sobbing and refocused. No more games. Well, not too many more. It was time to take what he had awoken for.

Grinning broadly, Tenebrae announced, "Oh, you'd love this Isaac. I'm sure Stiles would tell you to go to hell, if he could get the words out. I think he's a little preoccupied at the moment." 

"That's enough." Flat and hard - somewhat like his closed expression - Derek made a slashing motion with his hand. "It's time for you to get back to whatever black hole you came from. We're not letting you do whatever you took control of him for." His fingers were becoming claws, fur sprouting from his cheeks, and his teeth would have given young children nightmares.

The spirit laughed. "Oh, you'll have to kill him, Derek. That's the only way I'm leaving this meat vessel."

Snarling, the werewolf jumped forward, only to be shoved to the side as another humanoid, furry figure knocked him away. "Derek!" Scott exclaimed, his words guttural. "You can't kill Stiles. He saved your life." 

From the outraged expression on Derek's twisted face, it was doubtful that that had been what he'd had in mind. Apparently Scott was too busy being intimidating to notice.

Tenebrae had seen plenty of Alphas in his time - hell, even one or two true ones - but he had to admit the little birds weren't exaggerating when they had tweeted about this. Shoulders squared, jaw set into a hard line beneath his mane, eyes shining a deep, dark red, Scott was one of the most impressive specimens that he had ever seen. It didn't make him worried, though. 

It made him hungry. 

Making a grand gesture with Stiles' thin arms, the demon stepped forward. "You shouldn't speak, Scott. Your friend has been talking to me. Not willingly, you understand. But I have learned just a little bit of information about you. Scott McCall, the best person to have ever walked this earth. Stiles is jealous of you, you know. Oh, he's never said anything," Tenebrae added, waving his hand dismissively, the lies flowing smoothly from Stiles' mouth. "Of course not. Who could ever say anything against you? But he is jealous. You have everything. You're _perfect_.  _Perfect_ at lacrosse, while Stiles watches from the sidelines. The  _perfect_ student, while Stiles struggles with his pathetic inability to focus on anything. A  _perfect_ girlfriend - well, two of them - while he gets to pant after a certain unrequited love. A  _perfect_ son, with a  _perfect_ mother, and all Stiles has is a lovely grave site to weep over on occassion." 

If anything, Stiles' tears had become more ragged, louder and rougher, but the demon ignored it, running fingers through sweat darkened hair as a dead silence wrapped around Scott, dampening his powerful aura. "And you know, Stiles also thinks you're so _stupid._ You obsess about one inconsequential girl, and finally, finally get her. And then, when you've got her, you throw her away, just to pick up some new chick. Or should I say fox?" Tenebrae smirked at Kira. "And of course, everyone looks at you like you're a leader, but really, what good have you done? Won a few games, driven off a few creatures. Who have you saved? Not Erica. Not Boyd. Not Heather. And yet you act like you deserve to lead. He wonders, you know, about whether or not you've become an arrogant jerk, a star lacrosse wolfman who can get any woman he wants and takes his friends for granted. After all, Stiles has saved you countless times. And what thanks does he get? You didn't even notice me tearing him down. What kind of friend doesn't notice that? What kind of friend doesn't help when his best friend is worrying about going insane?"

Each word was like one of Allison's special arrows, piercing Scott and poisoning him with a toxin far more dangerous than mere silver. None of them were true, of course. But Tenebrae owned Stiles now, and that meant he owned his thoughts and the things that Stiles knew would tear through the true Alpha at his most vulnerable points. And Scott crumpled under the assault. Not physically. But the overwhelming quality was gone, leaving nothing but a scared, lost teen who was struggling to answer the accusations he had spent sleepless nights thinking about already. The red gleam faded.   

 _And that is how you pull a wolf's teeth,_ Tenebrae thought smugly at Stiles, though the boy was still lost in the unrelenting storm of pain that the demon had seen fit to give him. It would be quite the miracle if he could hear anything at all, let alone that conversation. Hmm... Might have been better to let him listen. It probably would have hurt more. Giving a mental shrug, he shifted his eyes from Scott to Derek, the next greatest threat as far as he was concerned. 

The man's shoulders were painfully hunched, and the teeth and claws had begun to draw back. Derek's anger hadn't, though. He was glaring at Stiles - glaring at the thing controlling him, to be specific - and it was strangely nostalgic, that fierce look. At least for Tenebrae. But Stiles' latent emotions didn't matter much to the old spirit (he'd seen unacknowledged feelings enough to hold them in distant contempt) and now he needed to wrench out some more teeth. And Stiles had given him the material to do it, unknowingly or no.

 "Speaking of friends..." The words were practically a purr. "Have you told them, Derek? Told them how much fun we had together, searching for those two walking corpses you liked to call your Betas?" More exaggeration, but the connection was there, and Derek's eyes flickered to Scott, guilty, avoiding Isaac entirely. The latter had stilled, his angular face drawing tight. Tenebrae continued. "Oh? You didn't tell them? Well, I guess I should have known. Do you know how much that hurt, Derek? Do you know how many nights Stiles spent up, wondering if you were ashamed of him, ashamed of what you had?"

Uttering a throaty laugh, the demon stepped closer, and said without pause, "If any of you move, I'm going to rip your little friend's sanity to bits, and let's see you recover him then." A rough grunt of frustration came from both of the tensed boys as they subsided but, threat issued, Tenebrae ignored them and moved until he was within arms reach of the frozen werewolf. "He stayed up for other reasons too," Stiles' lips breathed, in a voice that the boy had never used. "He  _wanted_ you Derek. He was quite imaginative about it, too. Did you know? Could you smell it on him?" Leaning in, closer and closer. "Can you smell it on him now?" For Tenebrae had loosed Stiles from his torment, and the pitiful mind was looking on in a delicious mixture of fear, humiliation, anger and, yes, desire. And it didn't take the demon's centuries of experience to see the basic lust that rose up in Derek to answer, even as the man's face became shadowed, disgust and rejection parading across it.

 _Perhaps he doesn't feel the same way,_ Tenebrae suggested maliciously, and rejoiced at the hurt that wasn't quite as great as the alarm that Stiles began to feel as Tenebrae allowed his intentions to show. Allowed the pitiful human to see just what he was about to do. And as despair became a rippling, dark wave across both of their minds, Stiles stepped forward against his will, grabbed Derek by the collar of his leather jacket and shoved their mouths together.

The kiss was hard and angry and nothing like Stiles had imagined it would be. There was a struggle as the werewolf grunted and attempted to yank himself free and the demon defied him, supernatural strength making the muscles of the human's forearm bulge. Through shock or fear of retribution, none of the others intervened, and Tenebrae allowed himself to enjoy the domination, the taste of sweat, the way Derek's lips had almost softened when they first made contact. He savored it, forced that enjoyment on Stiles until the boy could hardly tell where his own emotions ended and the demon's began. And just when he thought Derek might be responding, felt the slightest loosening of resistance, Tenebrae shoved his hand through the other's chest and ripped his heart out.

It came, pulsing and glowing, in a bundle of brilliant blue light held tightly in his grasp. It wasn't Derek's human heart. Tenebrae had no use for that. It was the heart of the werewolf, and it raged and pushed against the demon's control, spiking icy blue and then spiralling into an almost navy before lightening again. He could feel the primal rage that belonged to the werewolves as a whole within the small, misshapen sphere, and as Derek collapsed, clutching at his chest as the others crowded around him, Tenebrae stepped back. He wasn't smiling as he closed his eyes. Stiles' thin face rapidly became sallow, guant, ravenous as the demon focused on what he held in his hand.

It was what he needed and craved. What he waited centuries at a time for. The soul of a gifted one, thriving with the wild taint of old. It was there for the taking, and as he had done to so many others, werewolves, kitsune and other fantastic remnants of a time long past, Tenebrae stole it away. And he inhaled it. It was an easy, dramatic gesture. His eyes tightly shut, nostril flaring, thin chest expanding, the demon had the human breathe in, and as he did so, the blue light began to warp into his hand, merging with the flesh and overlapping it until it seemed as though his hand was lit on fire. And it might as well have been, for Stiles was screaming in far greater agony than he had been before, unable to escape into unconsciousness, and in a dim way Tenebrae noted that this was not good for his human host.

Well. Too late.

The taint came rushing up the arm, light slowly fading from Stiles' hand, fled through the human's chest in a fiery storm, and came hurtling up into his head, straight to where Tenebrae resided. It was heat, glorious heat, remnant of the place he had escaped from so very long, but cleansing instead of burning. The demon had several seconds to bask in the familiar warmth when he realized something. It wasn't stopping at him. It was going to the human he'd stolen the body from.

Stiles' eyes snapped open, his mouth forming in an 'O' of furious protest. And then suddenly his face went slack, body slumping to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, and Tenebrae felt his control being stripped from the muscles, from the mind, from everything he was anchored to. An abyss was opening up all around him, and the demon screamed, feeling, for the first time in a long time, pure terror. And Stiles' voice was the last thing he heard, reverbrating in his very soul, and it was Stiles' voice but thicker, strident and calm.  _I am the Spark,_ the voice announced, _and no demon holds sway over_ me.

\---

When he awoke, his arms immediately flailed against the thin, papery sheet that was holding them down, and Stiles let out several harsh, croaking coughs, a repeatedly failed attempt at shouting. There was someone pinning him down, someone much stronger than he was, and as his vision slowly steadied, bringing into sharper focus an unshaven, haggard fave, Stiles stilled, his mouth snapping shut. There was an awkward pause while Derek continued to hold him down, staring hard into his eyes, and Stiles thought vaguely that they looked unusually red. Human red, not werewolfy. Like he hadn't been getting enough sleep.

When the pause stretched into something beyond awkwardness, Stiles cleared his throat and Derek jumped, letting him go and retreating a few steps. The dark haired man scrubbed at the beard that was really getting out of control and muttered, "You're awake."

An incredible sarcastic reply rose up on his tongue, but the human kept it to himself. He felt weak and drained, his arms barely up to the task of getting him propped up. After watching Stiles struggle for a second or two, Derek came back, brawny arm supporting the slender teen until his back rested firmly against the headrest. Panting, out of breath from even that effort, Stiles blinked several times before gasping, "What the - hell - happened?" 

His face a study in blank sculpture, Derek replied, "We were hoping you could tell us."

And there were so many things that he could say to that, the answers rising up even as the memories did. He could remember the demon taking control, could remember the conversation that had ensued. He could picture everything up until the point that Derek's soul had come surging into his own, forcefully doing... something. He couldn't remember what. But there was something else he could remember, and a wan smile slipped onto his mouth, lips quirking up in an automatic gesture.

Derek was staring at him. "What?" he demanded aggressively.

The smile didn't disappear. "I don't remember much," Stiles admitted. "But I know one thing. You finally kissed me."

And Derek could have denied it, could have pointed out that it hadn't actually been willing... but all he did was tilt his head, eyebrows raising as if the thought hadn't occurred to him.

"Yeah," he said, low and soft. "Yeah, I guess I did." 

  

  _  
_

    

            

**Author's Note:**

> There will be another piece, following this story from Stiles' PoV instead of the demon's. There might also be a follow up explanation piece, if anyone is interested.


End file.
